Have you been a little hesitant about developing skills within your team? Well, it may surprise you to learn that delegation can be a real benefit to both your personal leadership and team development, as well as to your business.
Itโs true!
Delegating is an effective way to improving business efficiency. And this goes way beyond the obvious benefit of creating more quality time for you. In fact, delegation and leadership go hand-in-hand.
Leadership
Firstly, itโs an effective way to develop your leadership skills. This is because you are making a conscious effort to lead your team, potentially in areas they are unfamiliar with.
Team Development
And secondly, youโre effectively making a deliberate plan to develop your teamโs skills. Carefully delegating tasks to match the individual abilities within your team, leads to improving the overall effectiveness of your team. Which of course, will benefit your business in the long-term.
Delegation Reluctance
Now Iโm sure Iโm not the only one who has been reluctant to delegate tasks in the past.
There are many reasons that stop a business owner or leader from delegating. The typical ones include:
- Too much time โ showing and teaching people new skills takes time. When a business owner is focused on saving time and meeting deadlines, their thinking can be that itโs far quicker to continue doing things themselves.
- It costs too much โ if training is necessary, maybe you donโt have the expertise, and need to hire outside help. So, the immediate short-term cost is seen as a barrier.
- Fear of losing people โ the fear is that as soon as you have developed someoneโs skills, they will leave for a higher paying job with more prospects.
- Lose control โ It might just be that a business owner or leader is reluctant to delegate tasks for fear of losing some control of their business.
Of course, itโs important to understand the costs involved in developing skills within your team, both in terms of time and money.
But delegating tasks to your team, with the focus on your leadership and team development, can have a significant benefit to your business, particularly in these areasโฆ
Productivity
The more skilled your team, the more efficiently they will work, leading to increased productivity.
Quality
Increased knowledge and expertise enable your team to complete more complex tasks to a higher standard.
Innovation
Continuous learning encourages your team to develop new ideas and be adaptable and innovative when faced with new challenges.
Employee Engagement
Developing skills helps people feel they are growing personally, leading to more engagement and loyalty to your business. This loyalty is enhanced by your improved leadership skills.
Customer Satisfaction
These areas feed through into your products and services, contributing to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.
In summary
A skilled, knowledgeable, and flexible team can make a big, positive difference to a business. So, if delegation is an area that youโve struggled with in the past, itโs certainly worth learning to delegate. Particularly as noticeable results can be achieved sooner rather than later.
As well as assisting in your personal growth in leadership and team development, the collective benefits in the areas weโve discussed can be the key to your business success.
